after a winter of eating really terrible food, i'm back on the no-sugar wagon. i mashed up a whole banana into my hot cereal this morning - soooo much better than putting sugar or maple syrup on it!

does anyone have experience making their own date syrup? how long does it keep? dates are amaaazing but i feel like they sometimes add a weird texture to things i put them in? I don't know, maybe i'm crazy.

thankfully this isn't TOO hard for me, since i don't have much of a sweet tooth. but i put either demerara sugar or maple syrup in my hot cereal and while i drink my coffee plain, i do enjoy sweetened coffee drinks from time to time. what's everyone's favourite sugar replacement in hot chocolate? i'm reluctant to buy stevia and xylitol and all these things because i have a reeeeally limited budget and if it doesn't work for its intended purpose, well, that's about $10 that i could have spent on other food, completely wasted.

Yeah I have been a sugar bum lately bc I am miserab. Then of course I feel like shiitake (like holy shiitake right now) and the cycle continuessss

It started for me because I found some rice milk chocolate easter eggs, then I got more rice milk chocolate and then a brownie and then I baked brownies and now I've had a fuzzy head for a few days. Blerg.

Last night I had the PAN Green Carpet Gala (went with Dynahmite! So fun!). They had like 9 Vegan Treats cakes for dessert, and it was a help yourself kinda deal. So our side of the table got one huge slice of each freaking cake to share. They were amazing, obviously. And now I still feel sick. I never want to eat cake/dessert/sugar ever again. Ever. I'm sure I will get over it soon, but dayum that feel of sugar overload can really get you back on the wagon!

I think I need to jump back on the no sugar/low sugar bandwagon...I have been eating sooo much white flour and sugar and junk food that I am getting out of control and feeling sick. But the feeling sick doesn't seem to stop me and the craving just increases...so, I am rejoining you all. I have already cut back down on my soda intake, which I think is good. The past week I've had 2 diet cokes (ew, I don't even like coke), as opposed to the few weeks before when I was having a soda every day or so.

_________________"I think I am going to turn into a chickpea." ~DakiniLove is like a pineapple, sweet and undefinable~ Piet Hein

1- No cleanses. If you are on a juice cleanse, a no-food cleanse, a vegetable cleanse, whatever - please do not post about it here! As long as you have a functioning liver, kidney and spleen we'll be happy to hear about it, but all other cleanses have historically been triggers for disordered eating. Which leads us to...

While cutting back on sugar can be a good thing for anyone, no one needs to cleanse or detoxify their innards. There really is no need to frame dietary modifications with the word "cleanse."

_________________A whole lot of access and privilege goes into being sanctimonious pricks J-DubDessert is currently a big bowl of sanctimonious, passive aggressive vegan enduced boak. FezzaYou people are way less funny than Pandacookie. Sucks to be you.-interrobang?!

Good luck, Kitteh! Maybe if you make a deal with yourself, it'll be easier to stick to it. My deal is that if I can be sugar-free for a month, I'll let myself buy more nailpolish and since there are a couple of colors I really, really want, I think I can stick this out and when the month is over, I'll be used to the low/no-sugar thing so I won't fall back into my old habits as easily.

I need to get back on this bandwagon as well. I was doing well until a couple of weeks ago when I decided I needed to bake something and made cookies. While I used maple syrup/brown rice syrup, they still had more sugar than I was used to and I ate them all by myself which didn't help things, either. And now I feel like crepe because even though I'm doing the raw thing and aiming for 75-80% a day, the other 20-25% has been filled with sugary junk.

_________________"I would love to be president of the United States. It's been my dream ever since I discovered what power was." ~ RandiJM, age 11-ish

Good luck, Kitteh! Maybe if you make a deal with yourself, it'll be easier to stick to it. My deal is that if I can be sugar-free for a month, I'll let myself buy more nailpolish and since there are a couple of colors I really, really want, I think I can stick this out and when the month is over, I'll be used to the low/no-sugar thing so I won't fall back into my old habits as easily.

I need to get back on this bandwagon as well. I was doing well until a couple of weeks ago when I decided I needed to bake something and made cookies. While I used maple syrup/brown rice syrup, they still had more sugar than I was used to and I ate them all by myself which didn't help things, either. And now I feel like crepe because even though I'm doing the raw thing and aiming for 75-80% a day, the other 20-25% has been filled with sugary junk.

I like the idea of a deal, especially if it includes nail polish as the reward ;)

I think for now I'll be ok as my sinus pain is getting worse and the thought of sugar and how much worse I'll get is off-putting. But I'm sure as soon as I'm better I'll forget all about it and want to bake cookies or cake. I hope you can hop back on too :)

I fell off and have eaten lots of sugary-fatty type junk foods in the last few weeks. I need to get back on though, so I'm going to try and go cold turkey, no processed/refined sugars. We'll see how well this works! (So no baked goods-I got odwalla bars which I believe have no refined sugars, so they're good, but tons of fruit! hooray!)

_________________"Vegan to me means Oreos for breakfast." -Poopiebitch"tl;dr: I quit working to drink beer paid for with gift cards" erikasoyf*cker

I am officially (unfortunately) joining this thread. I love me some sugar!

However, I think I'm continuing to have gout flares because of my love of it. Without reading through 21 pages of posts, what has been most helpful to you in cutting out sugar?

I'm one of those people who *needs* dessert every day, and fruit doesn't equal dessert in my book. Any recommendations for things that kill a sweet tooth craving?

honestly, my advice is to NOT go cold turkey - that leads inevitably into rebounding & feeling much worse than you did before. be kind to yourself, take baby steps, & you're much more likely to stick with it! doing a temporary "sugar cleanse" isn't going to do you much good, health-wise, so I think you're much better off gradually training yourself to eat less sugar. much more healthy, sustainable, & keeps you sane. ;)

so I suggest that if you're used to eating a sugary dessert every night, don't give up on cakes & cookies altogether, just look into low-sugar alternatives. for now there's probably nothing else that will satisfy that craving, but if you gradually wean yourself off the chocolate-covered sugar bombs you'll find yourself craving them less & less.

at least, that's how it happened for me! I used to crave something super sugary after every meal, but now I'm satisfied with fresh fruit. in fact, I'm enjoying fruit more than I ever enjoyed cookies, if you can believe it! when my birthday came along I didn't even want cake, so I went to a vegan restaurant that served a raw cheesecake made out of fruit & nuts. ;) but I didn't change overnight, that's for sure. allow yourself an adjustment period & I think you'll have better results.

I did try a raw cheesecake a few weeks ago and was surprised at how good it was! I could definitely see that as my dessert replacement. I had eaten a raw mousse pie thingy a year or so ago and it was awful, so I expected all raw desserts to be terrible. I braved the cheesecake and it was fantastic. Now I just need to make my own that will measure up, as I'm not paying $5 for a slice of cheesecake every night.

I agree that cold turkey probably isn't the best way to go. Any recommended cookbooks that use agave, brown rice syrup, etc for their desserts? I'd rather stay away from stevia, as even though it's natural, it still has a bitter aftertaste to me.

Yay for you and your fruit desserts! I'm hoping to get there someday :)

I got off sugar a year ago because I wanted to think more clearly, and besides that I thought it had something to do with my migraine headaches. I no longer have migraine headaches, and they were up to like 3 days(?). I'm not sure about the thinking more clearly! I lost 45 -50 lbs. I'm back to around my usual weight. I went back to sugar toward the end of the year of being off of it - maybe 4 or 5 times. I have been a sugar addict throughout my life. Two years prior to the year that I was off of sugar I was eating sugar fulltime! I was addicted to sugar the way people are in the book: "Potatoes Not Prozac" - odd title for a book about sugar addiction. If I ate a little bit of sugar in a cookie or whatever I would just start eating sugar(as cake, cookies, or ice cream) all the time and forget about regular food. I couldn't even get myself to eat regular food. The bakery was like my crack dealer. The 4 or 5 times that I went back to sugar in the last few months - I didn't end up binging like before. They were just isolated incidents of eating sugar. I marveled at the fact that I wasn't becoming a sugar addict again. I felt the pull to eat more sugar after eating a dessert, but I didn't give into it. And that pull lasted for about a week. I have no interest in sugar anymore. I can walk by Ring Dings or the ice cream section without a thought of purchasing those items. I don't think that I'll lapse again, hopefully. It was a bad coping mechanism. I know this - that sugar is a drug.

I did try a raw cheesecake a few weeks ago and was surprised at how good it was! I could definitely see that as my dessert replacement. I had eaten a raw mousse pie thingy a year or so ago and it was awful, so I expected all raw desserts to be terrible. I braved the cheesecake and it was fantastic. Now I just need to make my own that will measure up, as I'm not paying $5 for a slice of cheesecake every night.

I agree that cold turkey probably isn't the best way to go. Any recommended cookbooks that use agave, brown rice syrup, etc for their desserts? I'd rather stay away from stevia, as even though it's natural, it still has a bitter aftertaste to me.

Yay for you and your fruit desserts! I'm hoping to get there someday :)

Raw websites/blogs/cookbooks use agave for desserts and there's an agave-sweetened cupcake in VCTOTW if you feel like something baked.

I had some sugar on Saturday after 3-4 days sugar free, I didn't fee terrible and haven't had any sugar since. My sinus pain has gone but I still feel a bit blerg, so I'm going to stick with it.

I did try a raw cheesecake a few weeks ago and was surprised at how good it was! I could definitely see that as my dessert replacement. I had eaten a raw mousse pie thingy a year or so ago and it was awful, so I expected all raw desserts to be terrible. I braved the cheesecake and it was fantastic. Now I just need to make my own that will measure up, as I'm not paying $5 for a slice of cheesecake every night.

I agree that cold turkey probably isn't the best way to go. Any recommended cookbooks that use agave, brown rice syrup, etc for their desserts? I'd rather stay away from stevia, as even though it's natural, it still has a bitter aftertaste to me.

Yay for you and your fruit desserts! I'm hoping to get there someday :)

I'm actually terrible at baking, which probably made it easier to give up baked goods ;) so I don't have any cookbook recommendations unfortunately, but you can try using less sugar in your favorite recipes to start with. I did find this neat blog recently that has some great sounding dessert recipes with little to no sugar: http://chocolatecoveredkatie.com/

also, I've found that dried fruit (especially mango...mmm!) and treats like Larabars can sometimes kill a sugar craving when fresh fruit just won't do (or isn't readily available). Can you find Larabars in your area? I love those things - a little spendy, but not compared to a $5 slice of cheesecake :)

I've been mostly sugar free the last few days. Made bread and used cider (so... natural-ish sweetener?). I've been eating the odwalla bars, since they have no refined sugar when I've been seriously craving sugar (They are vegan, right? I miss so many things... Such a n00b).

Feel good. I'm logging my foods and consistently coming up lower than expected, which I assume is because I'm not eating processed junk as much. Getting most of my nutrients in, which is great. The cravings are sudden and intense, but they don't last super long.

_________________"Vegan to me means Oreos for breakfast." -Poopiebitch"tl;dr: I quit working to drink beer paid for with gift cards" erikasoyf*cker